Improved clothes-frame



y UNITED STATES PATENT OEEICE.

HIRAM IIITTLEJOHN, OF TROY, NEW YORK.

IMPROVED CLOTH ES-FRAME.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 34,113, dated January 7, 1862.

T0 @ZZ whom t may concern:

Be it known that I, HIEAM LITTLEJOIIN, of the city of Troy, in the county of Rensselaer and State of New York, have invented a certain new and Improved Olothes-Drier; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full and exact description thereof, reference loeing had to the annexed drawings,in which- Figure l is a plan, and Fig. 2 a sectional elevation, of one of my improved clothes-driers, and in which drawings the same letters of reference indicate like parts in both figures.A

My improved clothes-drying frame has, like some clothes-driers heretofore made, radial arms A, all connected together by clotheslines B, and hung near their inner ends on pivots C to a stock D, so that the arms A can be expanded, as shown by Jfull lines in Figs. l and 2, to hold the clothes, and also closed toget-her, as indicated by the dotted lines in Fig. 2, to occupy less room when not in use and to permit the frame to be conveniently carried in and out of doors and transported from place to place; but instead of using the devices heretofore employed in clothes-driers to make all the pivoted radial arms A open and close simultaneously and equally in respect to a central vertical line when the power to open and close them is applied to only one of those arms, and to keep the arms A when expanded all at substantially the same inclination, or from being tilted over sidewise by a greater weight of clothes hanging on one side of the frame than on its opposite side, I make the inner ends of the arms A all with separate and equal toothed segments E and arrange in the center between them a vertically-movable toothed block or rack F, into which latter all the segments E are engaged, as indicated by the annexedl drawings. By this construction the power applied to any one arm 1s communicated to the opposite arm by means of the verticallymovable toothed rack F and the toothed segments E on those arms only,entirely independent of and consequently without bringing any injurious strain upon the intervening arm or arms or the toothed segment or segments thereon; and with this construction the arms A may be retained in either an expanded or a closed condition simply by means of a set-screw g, Fig. 2, screwed through one side of the rack F and against the part h, along which the rack moves as the arms close and open. Y

The stockD and its supporting-post I may be made, as indicated in Fig. 2,so that the frame can be freely turned around horizontally upon and readily lifted off and removed from the post.

Now,I do notbroadly claim as new the connecting of the inner ends of the radial pivoted arms together by means ot toothed gearing, so that the arms shall all close and open simultaneously and equally in respect to a iixed axial line. Neither do I broadly claim the communication of power or motion by a mechanical device from one of the pivoted radial arms to an opposite arm independently of the intermediate arm or arms, my invention being limited to a particular arrangement of certain devices in combination with the pivoted radial arms connected together by clothes-lines, substantially as herein specitied, and shown by the annexed drawings.

Vhat I claim as new and of my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

The arrangement of the vertically-movable toothed rack F, in combination with the pivoted radial arms A, provided with toothed segments E,and connected together by clotheslines B, substantially as herein set forth.

HIRAM LITTLEJOHN.

Witnesses:

JOHN MoRAN, AUSTIN F. PARK. 

